


Heart Shaped Box

by kiual



Series: billian aus [1]
Category: Chaos Walking - Patrick Ness
Genre: M/M, Office AU, Tumblr Prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 10:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1184913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiual/pseuds/kiual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It only takes one person to throw your beliefs about relationships on their head. </p>
<p>Written as a tumblr prompt here. Part of a series of different billian aus suggested to me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart Shaped Box

Ben hated Mondays. Cillian, by default of having to disagree with every opinion of the other man, loved them.

The sheer heavy weight on his shoulders every morning, waking up and knowing that for the next seven or so hours he would be trapped in the most mundane of situations. A computer screen would be his only companion, and the sound of fingers tapping out against the keys of their own monitors would start to ring out like Chinese water drip torture in the small room.

By Wednesday he'd become accustomed to the sounds and the boredom and be able to accept it as 'just part of the routine,' but Mondays were different. They were full of the regret of not doing enough the day before, or not relaxing enough when given the opportunity.

Ben liked to drive himself a little insane by thinking too hard.

Cillian, a man with a smile far too large and a gait carrying too much confidence for someone working seven hours, five days a week tapping numbers into databases and taking calls, was a relatively new person in Ben's life. He'd first introduced himself on his first day in the office (Ben's four hundred and twenty third, if he counted correctly) while struggling to balance an array of coffee cups along his arms. It was the new staff coffee run at its most cruel, and Ben knew immediately that this man had done something to get disliked by the rest of the staff.

As soon as Cillian opened his mouth, this became quite apparent.

He had greeted Ben with a cheery smile, eyes slipping slightly closed as his mouth turned up. Unfortunately, this brief slip in concentration had ended in three lost mugs rolling across the floor towards Ben's feet, their contents soaking into the carpet. Cillian had sworn enough that Ben knew he was human (he'd had doubts when he first saw that smile) before stumbling through the doors to distribute the rest of the coffee before any more accidents were to occur. Ben had wanted to punch the other man from the very first moment, but still found himself on his knees scrubbing before Cillian returned.

The next day, Cillian was allocated a desk directly opposite Ben's. Ben used this opportunity to take all his growing frustrations out in bursts of silent glares and unspoken words. Cillian smiled over at Ben with a _fucking wave_ , then picked up his notepad and began to scribble.

As the weeks went by, Ben was relieved to see Cillian slowly becoming more human and reacting in the correct way to the amount of work he was doing. The rest of the staff slacked off enough that their exhaustion wasn't too crippling, but Cillian in those first few weeks? No. He worked like a robot on the computer, fingers trailing across the keys and eyes narrowed in concentration.

In the staff room where most came for lunch, Ben found himself listening to the grumbled complaints of several adults who, like himself, were frankly sick and tired of new staff with their excitement and exuberance. They were always better than the rest, never slacking off and always willing to put in the extra time, even when there was no money up for offer. They all let out a silent sigh of relief when Cillian's fingers slowed their race on the keyboard, and he started to eat slowly in the staff room rather than out in the office area.

It was around this time when Ben and Cillian really began to get acquainted. Their route home by train was much the same, though they'd never really left work at the same time before, so had never realised. It was silent company at first; neither was very forward, even if Cillian was more confident than Ben in every way. Then, hesitantly their conversation began to open up into talk about home life. Work was avoided as much as possible, as they both figured it would be a touchy subject.

Ben even began to voluntarily email Cillian during work hours. It wasn't against the rules, though the email system was supposedly for staff to communicate about the jobs they were working on if they had any questions, but it wasn't monitored.

Cillian sent Ben a link on one Monday morning. He'd been sat in miserable silence for the last hour, avoiding the calculations sitting on the forms on his desk when the email from Cillian had come through. He'd clicked the link, and had to catch himself when he almost laughed out loud into the office silence.

From the artist alone he knew the song Cillian had chosen. It was one he had heard numerous times before, but still Ben glanced around the room before taking out his earphones and attaching them to the computer. 

_"I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows I'm miserable now..."_

Ben disregarded the spreadsheet behind his internet browser for the next three minutes as the song rang out in his ears. By the end, he was smiling a wide smile over at Cillian.

_You like The Smiths?_ His next email read. Cillian looked down at his monitor and typed a quick reply.

_One of the best._

Ben nodded with a smile and looked away. His work was still waiting, and they had a long train journey afterwards to look forward to music talk. Despite his attitude, Ben didn't enjoy slacking off work and hated the build up over the days.

A week later, Ben received a text from Cillian on a rainy Saturday. His plans had been shopping for food and sitting in with a film, but Cillian's text brought his plans to a halt. The offer to go to the other man's house and talk more was, surprisingly, enticing for Ben. A man who very much enjoyed his own company above all others, and yet he was going out of his way to leave his house and talk to other employees. Cillian had to be something special.

It took Ben little over fifteen minutes of being with Cillian before he realised he was in deep trouble. It had started with the bright smiles and warm offerings of food and drink, before progressing into a relaxed conversation sat on the sofa beside Cillian's fire.

It wasn't the home of a man in a job as dull and business-like as office work. There was too much character, too many openly displayed CDs and books. The furnishings were deep coloured and not at all similar to the bland modern whites of Ben's own apartment home. Cillian was something of an anomaly in Ben's steadily planned out, incredibly mundane life.

This difference was going to be his downfall, he could feel it. Cillian was interesting, not just to Ben, but the other office workers seemed to be drawn into him now too, and lunch would pass with seldom spoken of other than Cillian's past work and family life (his accent was far too northern and slurred to be that of the areas down south, where business was done without emotion or voice. They wanted to know his secrets) and in Cillian's home it seemed he too was just as curious.

"So, where are you living at the moment?"

Ben felt his mouth bob open and closed as if he were some sort of fish, and tried to push his self-conscious thoughts about his confused, wavering expression to the back of his mind. He found himself compelled to answer the question, which was just not right. Cillian didn’t get to pry into his personal life like this, with that smug little smile like he knew exactly how enticing his offer to sit and talk as close friends was. It was an internal battle that he had been losing from the start, Ben found as he began to talk.

“Broads Road. Quite far into the suburbs.”

Fifteen minutes and two cups of coffee later, Ben Moore gave in. He had been kidding himself if he had thought that the interest he had for Cillian was nothing but an innocent few thoughts about Cillian’s past. Ben was not gay, he would often repeat to his coworkers. He was more... Ambiguously gay.

And Cillian was attractive.

One afternoon with cups of coffee and cake ran into drowsy train rides across the city. Talk was minimum, but their shared music taste would often lead to a pair of earphones hanging between them with the soft tinny buzz of music playing into one ear each. Cillian left the train first, twirling the earphones and nodding at Ben with a bright smile.

It had been a while since Ben had really had an opportunity to get to know someone enough to develop a crush. People flitted in and out within his life; family moving further away as he became more stuck in position, and coworkers moving between branches in order to stay with one friend or another fiancé. It was the chaos and loneliness that was undoubtedly going to run alongside working in such a dull business area, and was not something easily remedied when drinking and partying were not even close to reaching Ben's 'mildly interested' list. So he allowed himself the comfort of enjoying his time with Cillian and letting his feelings run their course. It was even somewhat relaxing to let himself be so free with another person.

He wasn't looking for a relationship with Cillian ( _it would be nice_ ) but rather basking in the warm feelings of affection he felt whenever the other man smiled as if the rain wasn't falling, their suits weren't wrecked by bad weather, and they weren't heading into a silent office to tap away at a keyboard for the rest of their day. He felt pleasantly surprised whenever Cillian remembered Ben's own needs, like the chocolate bar passed across the table at lunch time when Ben's own pack up was barely more than tin foil wrapped sandwiches and a crisp packet. Cillian was really taking his role as the caring friend seriously.

Ben retaliated with his own actions, of course. The emailed link to music that could be downloaded only the company computers without the files showing up in history. The crisps passed over to Cillian whenever they were that one special flavour. Small things, insignificant things, but they seemed to have convinced Cillian that Ben was worth keeping around.

\---

It was the twelfth of February when Ben really began to panic.

Two days. Valentine's day. He was so used to ignoring the implications the date held and turning a blind eye to the garish reds and pinks of decorations in shop windows, that the idea of taking any action the way others did on the day was foreign and completely terrifying.

He'd decided early in the new year that Cillian was worth a real pursuit. There was no point worrying over the sexuality of the other man, and how their friendship would be affected by any sort of rejected confession; Ben knew Cillian was open minded, and not the kind to judge or offend. It would be slightly rocky, perhaps, but nothing they couldn't handle.

And so he'd gone and chosen Valentine's Day. The day he'd spent most of his time criticising and despising over the past few years. And here he was. One confession away from making his first Valentine's Day 'move,' so to speak.

He didn't want to ask outright, that was his first decision. There would be no stuttered words or blushing cheeks. The silence of an office during working hours could be used to his advantage, and he intended to leave a gesture of sorts, just to kick start his attempts.

There was, of course, the worry that his efforts would be too vague, and Cillian would mistake them for being nothing more than a friendly, sympathetic action. There would have to be a note, though Ben felt a shudder at the thought of piecing together his feelings for Cillian into a short letter to get his message across, without seeming too cold or too obsessed.

\---

Ben entered work on the fourteenth with Cillian by his side, and his bag armed with a heart shaped box of chocolates. He'd been lucky enough to find the right kind of pralines in one of the remaining Valentine's Day boxes, and felt he was more than ready to tackle this nagging problem constantly following him whenever he looked up and met Cillian’s bright, icy eyes.

His fingers trembled on the login details. He wobbled the mouse too hard and opened the wrong document.

He couldn't even convince himself otherwise. He was terrified.

If Cillian noticed Ben's unusual lack of response and terrible motor skills, he didn't let on. It was slightly off-putting, and Ben wished Cillian would just demand an answer from him before he started mixing up data and emailing the wrong clients. It wasn't even lunch time yet, and his probability of making some of his first mistakes since getting the job had risen considerably.

The room filtered out into the lunch room, Cillian going first when he saw Ben fiddling around with his computer to buy time. When the door had closed over, he quickly brought the box from his bag and laid it out beside Cillian's keyboard, out of sight from other workers. The note was definitely still inside, and was just about legible through his wobbling pen strokes. He'd even managed to create a message quite neutral, with not too much sap and yet at the same time not too little. Everything was going to plan.

He joined the others in the lunch room, pulling out his foil wrapped food and accepting the chocolate passing under his nose from his left. Cillian began to chat, something about a new indie film released in the independent cinema in the main city area. Ben wasn't usually much of a film person (never mind indie films, which he'd never quite been able to wrap his head around) but so far his enjoyment of the odd spectacles he found himself watching with Cillian were much more enjoyable, and even had a bit of an impact on him when Cillian was at his side making extremely vocal reactions in every remotely dramatic or comedic moment. But now - now his heart just couldn't get into it.

The nerves and worry of rejection had finally kicked in, and his constant mantra of, ' _oh god, there really is a chance he could disown me as his - whatever I am, for doing this._ ' Cillian was an anomaly though, he had to keep reminding himself, and was likely to try harder than the average man after hearing one of his closest friends had developed feelings for him.

Lunch passed too quickly for Ben's liking, and he allowed Cillian to go back to the room while he composed himself. He didn't look Cillian in the eye walking back to his desk, and engaged in a bit of forced small talk with a woman he didn't think he could even recall the name of. Though that was likely to be the nerves.

His eyes hurt from the intensity at which he bore them into his computer screen and stared at figures until they wavered and flickered around. It was an interesting sensation, and he was so disconnected by worry that he couldn't feel the sting and pain from his eyes drying out.

The screen changed with a tiny beep signalling an email, and Ben was thrown out of his reverie.

It was a message from Cillian. No subject. Received just now. He clicked on it with his eyes closed to slits.

He had to use all his willpower not to throw up when he read the single word on the email. It was a culmination of all the building nerves of the past few days, and the shock that he'd actually mustered the courage to ask Cillian something so bold and so _not like Ben_ , that he found himself shaking even more looking at the small, still wavering in his blurry eyes, word saying _yes_.


End file.
